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Comment by iN7h33nD | Hacker News Reader

Something I have never understood. Why do employees have to give two weeks notice to an employer when the employer could fir you today with no notice at all? I understand that keeping you around for two weeks could be bad for them, but why isn't it bad when your quitting as well? I guess this could all be solved by forcing severance packages by law for a minimum of two weeks or something like that.

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Unless it's specified in your contract, there is no obligation to give your employer 2 weeks notice. It's nothing more than courtesy.

And it's a -professional- courtesy, whereby you are maintaining a better relationship with the company you're leaving (because you never know if you might some day want/need to come back).

The converse, a company letting you go effective immediately, no severance, is sufficiently discourteous that it will likely prevent anyone from -wanting- to come back, as well as will build a reputation for them that will likely prevent a lot of talent from even looking at them as a possibility.

It behooves both employees and employers to keep their professional impressions positive.

Yes, a company that lays off part of the staff without severance is telling all the remaining staff "get the fuck out now."

The real reason for the asymmetry between the conventional obligations of employee and employer is the underlying power asymmetry. A typical employee's life has a single point of failure in his employer, while a typical company doesn't any comparable dependency; it is one-to-one vs. many-to-one. Employees can't afford to get informally blacklisted, they'll have trouble paying bills. Companies can always hire another guy who needs to make rent. Employees stand to lose everything, but when companies go away, capital finds a way.

When a typical employee's BATNA against informal blacklisting on the employer grapevine is minimum wage, homelessness or gun in mouth they have no expectation of control over the situation, even if they do nothing wrong. Whereas a company does expect to have control; all they have to do is not write down any discriminatory reasons, and just claim underperformance. So if they want you to dance like a bear, you'll either dance like a bear or start scrambling to fund your early retirement.

That's why we have nothing to say any time someone raises the question of how it's fair for things to be so asymmetrical: because it isn't fair, it's just what you have to do to make your monthly payments.

I see a two-week notice as a reverse-layoff situation. In many jobs, you're hired with the ability to leave whenever you want, which becomes more like a reverse-firing. But, of course, when you do that, you risk tainting your reputation within the industry, perhaps not being able to give references or worse. Depends on the industry I'd say.

FWIW, in the Netherlands many collective bargaining agreements DO stipulate a minimum notice for firings (barring special circumstances like gross neglect, committing felonies, etc.). For example, my first system admin job had a contract mandating 1 month's notice in both directions. Usually the notice given by the employer is longer than the notice given by the employee and the notice duration for the employer increases with seniority (so after several years I'd be owed 2 or 3 months notice).

I think the main reason there's no notice by employers in the US is the lack of unions/organised labour to fight for rights like these.

Its because you should never burn a bridge no matter how bad you want to. Unfortunately something that is rarely talked about in our society is how companies burn bridges all the time in layoffs etc. So its a double standard.

Nobody ever talks about this side of the coin when it comes to layoffs and how companies behave. Everyone thinks oh its legal for them to just throw you out with no severance so its fine that they did that.

Then sadly anyone complaining about being laid off in that way is labeled a "bitter former employee", and quitting without giving 2 weeks notice is considered you slapping them in face.

It's considered a professional courtesy, as is providing adequate severance. If you work at a place that doesn't give severance, I wouldn't necessarily give two weeks notice.

But there is some law about notice. The WARN Act covers large employers who are conducting large layoffs. They have to give 60 days notice of large layoffs 50-500 depending on work site size and other factors.

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